Comments

2
I have unconditional love for my dog. People, on the other hand, very conditional ...
3
Hate the Sin.

Love the Sinner.

Sort of...
4
I don't know if I could take it. It was tough for me to come out to my liberal agnostic parents. I didn't want them to be disappointed in me or worry about me.

It makes me sick to my stomach that people choose fantasies over their lives with their children. Her belief has robbed her of one of the best things about being a living human, and that is watching your babies turn into happy adults. Her religion has sucked so much love out of her family.
5
Given the choice, I would gladly pretend I was an orphan.
6
That sounds like a Mom that hasn't had to go to any of her own children's funerals. I've been at two such memorial services with my mother, and as uptight as she can be, I can't imagine she has any desire to go to a third.
7
Religion is a waste of time at best. At worst, religion is pure evil.
8
Matthew Inman says is best in "The Gay Marriage Debate In 50 Years" cartoon

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/gay_marriag…
9
Great piece. Unfortunately the math is pretty grim: she'd rather see almost half of her children dead than gay. The sickness of this seems self-evident, but alas, "The Lord" is involved.
10
I grew up in a Pentecostal home in the South and so much of this is familiar to me. It was "I'd rather you be dead than for you to be gay". She did ask me to forgive her - a few days later.

She's still praying for me, too... after 30 years. Somehow through those years, cautiously navigating our relationship, I've arrived at pretty much the same place that the author has. Those two paragraphs that Dan highlighted sum it up just right.
11
Reminds me of a photo going around facebook: "So same sex couples don't make good parents? When is the last time a same sex couple disowned their child for being straight?"

Here's a link to it: https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-a…
12
That article was so heartbreaking. It once again reminds me of how fortunate I am that my conservative evangelical parents didn't pull that kind of stunt but have tried their best to understand.
13
I dunno... for those of us who have had complicated relationships with our parents thanks to abuse, nonacceptance, indifference you name it..... sometimes it comes down to realizing that they did love you. Maybe they didn't love you in the way you needed, and maybe they didn't love you enough, or the right way, but they loved you in the only way they knew how. Maybe it wasn't good enough, maybe it hurt you, but learning that not all love is good is part of growing up too.
14
Yep. Shamed by one's parents into terror. "I'm praying for you"- one of the most evil phrases ever cobbled together in English. And still xtians wonder why we loathe them.
15
As usual, it comes down to who gets to define the terms (and say what is or isn't love). Humpty Dumpty for the win.
16
I wanted so much to give my family a chance to be understanding and supportive. Instead, it became an unending flurry of insults and religious proscriptions that was draining all the joy out of my life. When I finally realized it wouldn't ever change with them, I left. It was like taking a black trash bag off my head and getting my first breath of fresh air. They did me a favor.
17
@1 I know some Buddhists that might disagree. You can love someone and not take abuse from them. You can love someone and allow them to suffer the consequences of their actions. You can even love someone and choose to never see them / speak to them again.
18
@17: Wow, thank you for that. So true.
19
"You'll pray for me? How kind! I'll be sure to dance naked in a corn field for you."
20
Nothing all that great about the article, really. It just sort of fizzles and goes nowhere. But the idea of unconditionally loving someone who explicitly says they would rather you DIED than spent time with someone you love is just bullshit. Why? Because they raised you? Fuck them. If they're not only not going to "evolve," as the current lingo has it, but they're going to figuratively beat you with a metaphorical baseball bat (the VIOLENCE in that imagery), then fuck. Them.
21
Makes me glad my mother abandoned religion decades ago. When I asked her on Sunday why she still had people over for Easter dinner her immediate and honest answer was, "I like ham".

22
I wouldn't call his love from or for his parents as unconditional. It strikes me as THE definition of conditional:

"I love you son, so long as you silently endure my passive aggressive remarks about your assured damnation, despite the shame you cause me before my God and my community, and because you live far enough away so that I am not affronted with your partner, your friends, or your views."

"And I love you mom, so long as we talk about the weather on the rare times we call one another, so long as I stop trying to debate you and your retrograde God, and so long as I work really hard at not letting you continue to wound me emotionally. Deliberately living nowhere near you helps with that last part."

I actually really enjoyed this piece, particularly the lesson about bullying, but I'm left wondering if I got the better deal when my family just decided, years ago, to pretend that I'm dead. At least there's honesty in it. And I never again have to travel back home after Christmas hating myself for being gracious, always, in the face of their hatefulness and stupidity.

And that's the thing that strikes me the most about this essay: their unconditional love is premised, always, on the writer's enduring graciousness.


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